


Death comes from above

by helissa



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom
Genre: Angst and Feels, F/M, Implied/Referenced Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-09
Updated: 2020-05-09
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:28:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24089662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/helissa/pseuds/helissa
Summary: "It was strange the way some things worked.Nick wasn't able to remember with clarity what had happened after that battle, he didn't remember how they had recovered him and the corpse in the wood between mines-made fields. (…) But in that case, well, in that case, regret had sticked inside him with the same, acute and irrepressible pain that a bullet in the face could cause."Every mind can snap.
Relationships: Nick Fury/Maria Hill
Kudos: 15





	Death comes from above

It was strange the way some things worked.  
Nick wasn’t able to remember with clarity what had happened after that battle, he didn’t remember how they had recovered him and the corpse in the wood between mines-made fields. But sometime, he didn’t remember either distinctly his mother’s face and he didn’t regret it. Not regretting things like family dinners with her and his brother, the fact he wasn’t able to recall in his mind personal events in a clear way and neither many soldiers and spies that had died under him… well, all that shit had never worried him too much. His head was so lined with other details and plans to remember that it was kind of normal that there wasn’t material space to fill with not useful memories or feelings.  
But in that case, well, in that case, regret had sticked inside him with the same, acute and irrepressible pain that a bullet in the face could cause. He had discovered guilt’s shapes and facets that his mind has never had the effort to just touch.  
And one thing he regretted more was not have called her by her name, when she had gone away.  
_«Stay, look at me. Stay»._  
_«I can’t do this, Nick»._

  
********

##  **-I keep tryin’ to conceive that**

#  **Death comes from above**

«I think Wanda Maximoff is unstable».  
Nick was keeping his head straight on his desk: it was passed since a while the moment in which he could still feel the neck’s muscles hurt. He passed hours literally bent on the mentioned desk, inspecting proves and papers and documents, being too far from what he thought was a correct amount of time. He was again a sort of general director of the New S.H.I.E.L.D. and yet it seemed that there were anyway other people deciding how he would have managed his own time. Alphonse MacKenzie would really have to explain him certain things about it. Nick approved with a pen’s flight another paper and only then he raised up the head, exploring with his only eye the room.  
That time, Maria Hill was standing in the dim light next to the door and, for some reasons, she was wearing the old uniform, the one from the good old times’ S.H.I.E.L.D.- with the Hydra devouring it from the inside but with lot less complications. And Hill’s old uniform was incredibly well kept.  
«Maximoff’s unstable» pondered Nick. He shook his head. «Well, look who’s talking».  
«That’s so Stark to say». She smiled for a second, then returned serious. «Are you going to check?»  
«’thought Strange was dealing with it».  
«And since when do you trust him?» Hill observed. By the way she had tilted her head, Nick had the clear impression she had come there only to save him from paperwork.  
He lifted a single corner of his mouth- that was his own version of a smile.  
Then he got up and got away from that damn office.

  
Wanda Maximoff had been unstable by all means and for all intents.  
She had been more than simply unstable, to be honest.  
You think all those bullshit psychic powers that the girl had received should at least help her controlling and managing grief. Everyone had lost someone: it was a pretty common and inevitable condition in Earth’s life after Thanos- and even after the Blip. But no, it seemed that Maximoff wanted to have exclusive rights in that point, after having lost the brother against Ultron and the lover against that purple ass-chin titan. To what Nick had heard, somehow Vision had died twice in a row and that type of thing seemed to have, well, thinned and eventually teared up the thread that separate reason and madness in Maximoff’s mind.  
If that were on him, the girl could have lost her entire family, her city and a fucking hamsters’ breeding farm. Everyone had lost someone, in that bitch of a war. And losing the brother and the lover (twice in a row) and some friends (if ever Maximoff has considered as such Romanoff and Stark)… well, all that was not enough efficient reason for creating a giant fucking illusions’ bubble above a town in Oregon.  
Nick wasn’t happy when people tried that sort of things. Especially when he was brought in some serial shit he couldn’t directly control.  
Strange was already there when Nick had arrived and there were good chances that the total destruction of the city hall but the elementary school and the hospital’s not-destruction were given by his very own magic tricks. «Inside this protective tetradimensional sphere, she shouldn’t make trouble of any sort» he assured them.  
«This “shouldn’t” word choice is never a good sign» Maria observed, next to Nick.  
Nick gave a look at Maximoff. Sleeping on that weightless and golden bed Strange had created, she was almost a Disney princess. She seemed so in peace and relaxed, as she had blown up absolutely nothing.  
«I don’t like this neither» he said.  
The wizard glanced at them frowned. «I beg your pardon?»  
Nick pointed at him the wannabe princess. «And for how much time will you able to contain her? Can’t risk. If she goes mad, we’ll keep her at S.H.I.E.L.D. and kill her, potentially».  
Strange looked at him, in a long and penetrating way, and Nick didn’t take his eye off him. He could feel Maria’s regular breath next to him.  
Eventually, the wizard turned away, returning to watch Maximoff in her theca. «Madness is relative, in this our world».  
«If there’s a single more problem, we’ll kill her».  
«There will be not». Not use of “should”, that time. «I’ll personally assist Wanda in controlling herself. And if she wouldn’t be able, I’ll manage the situation, with whatever it takes».  
Nick exchanged a look with Maria, then he walked towards what remains of the exit.  
«Another thing, director» Strange’s voice called him from inside the building’s ruins. He was now already sitting in the middle-air, with the cape floating around his shoulders and hands upon the princess’ bed. «I strongly suggest you to reach help also for yourself, in your mental situation».

 _«Stay, look at me. Stay»_  
_«I can’t do this, Nick»._  
Nick opened wide his good eye, finding himself watching his room’s black ceiling. He had dreamed again something undefined, but yet so intense that it has let inside him a dirty empty sensation. He got up from the bed and went to the bathroom to wash his face.  
The hole that was left in place of his left eye pulsed as if someone has just tortured it with a cane- thing that had happened to him once or twice, in the presence of some mercenaries gentlemen with particular attention to cause the most pain with minimal effort. Giving up the idea of sleeping again, Nick got dressed and left without a destination, to simply stroll in the helicarrier’s hallways.  
He didn’t go very far before meet her.  
«Not able to sleep, sir?»  
Maria Hill was a little further, sitting on the ground near the parapet, the legs dangling on the landscape’s empty space that stood before the propellers. He wished there was someone else to see her in that way, to assure him he wasn’t dreaming: she seemed a girl, in a strange way that he couldn’t explain even to himself. It was unprofessional, fazing in some points, and yet again tender in an odd and sorrowful way, as something that his mind couldn’t reach was out of place but not to be put in its righteous one.  
He should have said something, probably a scolding, but he felt that would have actually put the things in the same, righteous place he was avoiding. He simply leaned against the wall, feeling for some reasons tired, almost like old. It was still night. The hallway in which they were was open to the propellers, that weren’t at their maximum power, so only occasionally the wind disturbed. Lights brighted for all over the helicarrier, creating illusions of stars. Voices of patrols and agents came strongest and then weakest as they walked near to them.  
«It’s been a long day» he said, after a while.  
«I’m sure all days in the S.H.I.E.L.D. are». She was giving him the back and the seemed imperceptible for the lights twirling all around them. «Some of them seem never ending. You ask yourself if it’d be so even when we’ve died».  
Nick raised an eyebrow. «Not gonna try that in recent times».  
Maria chuckled. The sun would have rised soon.

 _They were running in a land made of explosions._  
_Mines were everywhere and moving, they were programmed to follow them._  
_Men blown up at every step, raining upon them blood splashes and lumpy pieces of flesh. They shooted from side to side, they were almost under the trees of the near wood; Nick would have personally killed that damn son of a bitch that had combined science and magic in that way without being in the S.H.I.E.L.D. and against them._  
_They had arrived at the wood. They stopped to breathe, a moment made by heavy and fainting gasps, by sweat and a little, annoyed shock. They had been the entire team starting that mission: now they were on their very own, Nick and her. But they were alive._  
_They were alive._  
_It had been in that exact moment, after he had thought that exact words: from the trees, a fire started on them._  
_At that point, screams and moans._  
_«NO!»_  
_A last bang and other screams._  
_«Stay, look at me. Stay»._  
_«I can’t do this, Nick»._  
_«No, you don’t leave. Stay, stay…»_  
Another dream, another waking too much early up. Nick was just getting used to it: that was surely not the first nightmare that tormented him, nor it would have been the last. Yet, there was something that slipped away from his grip, a thought hiding itself behind layers and layers of other thoughts, withdrawing from him deeper every time he tried to catch it.  
That was why he preferred way more a physical fight, hand-to-hand, or some of his spy’s elaborate schemes to some psychic battle. Sometimes, he couldn’t help but think if he shouldn’t reach the help of that psychican mutant they had on board. But he couldn’t afford that someone he didn’t trust- and that cut significantly off the world population- sticks his or her nose in his mind. Too many things that must stay in there.  
«Tonight too?» Maria asked, sitting in the car seat near to him while he was juggling Manhattan mid-morning traffic. Black suit, that day, and the hair in a short ponytail.  
Yeah, that night too, just before Strange had communicated Maximoff was not so easy to control.  
«Maybe I should assign you to another task». Nick told her. He turned on the left, surpassing some cars stopped under a red light. «You’re getting a bit too good at examining me».  
Maria said nothing, simply skimming last emails on the old S.H.I.E.L.D. phone. Nick frowned, as he had imagined she would have at least a pleased expression, considering that was the nearest thing to a compliment any living being would ever get from him- and considering Maria knew that. But she remained neutral, without a single trace of satisfaction. Maybe there was something going wrong with her in those days and they should have a good talk about it- they weren’t in the position of having distractions of any sort. But that wasn’t the moment and no one spoke until he parked under the Avengers Tower.  
«Sooner or later, you have to get over death to continue to live, Nick. You must let things go».  
And that was all.  
Ok, the chat he was planning should have been that very same day. Nick got out of the car frowning and such he stayed for all the time needed to reach the Avengers in the meeting room.

«So, the only valid option we have is to kill now Maximoff, before things get out hands».  
For an instant, the silence followed his words. It was surely something unusual, giving that usually superheroes tended to have an ego stronger than their own powers. Especially after the S.H.I.E.L.D. scandal and the Blip, they felt legitimised to question whatever he said.  
He was lucky he hadn’t to manage the entire team: only Captain Wilson, Bucky, Spider-Man and Hulk were there- and also Valkyrie, but for some reasons she didn’t consider herself an Avenger. Ant-Man and Wasp were on a mission, but they have left in their place Matt Murdock, from the Defenders. Nick met Maria's eyes- she was standing next the door, just behind Sam Wilson and Bucky Barnes. Soon someone would have said something and he would have needed her support to make his motivations firmer.   
«But just think...» As predictable.  
Banner often gesticulated when he was speaking, not thinking about the consequences his enormous green hands could cause. Parker, sitting near to him, moved carefully a little further while he was continuing. «We should all think about this in the first place: is it right to kill someone before he commits anything? I really feel, Director, that your could be an extremely severe decision. All things considered, the situation in Oregon was without victims of any sort. And giving that Wanda's mind is already damaged, I'm sure a softer approach could...»  
«Softer approach? Big guy, that girl blown up a city». Valkyrie's practical sense, folks: one of the point Nick counted on more. «New Asgard ain't going to be her new play garden!»  
«Not gonna happen» Nick highlighted, «if we put an end to this. In time».  
«It's a valid option» said Matt Murdock with a single nod.  
«But, Mr. Murdock, killing...»  
Oh no, Banner would not ruin all. «When we'd have had, we haven't done the first move we had to with Thanos. Want to do the same mistake, Banner? Because I don't».  
«Please, Fury, no offense, but you don't actually have met Thanos. And you neither, mister Murdock».  
«This doesn't make the point, Captain Wilson. If this girl is going to be a danger...»  
«But are we gonna really kill one of us? Like an Avenger killing another Avenger? Man, I could never ever! I've never killed anyone!»  
«That's because you're a kid, Spider-boy».  
«Well, maybe it's true, Valk… miss Valkyrie. But I'm a kid with a moral code!»  
The discussion continued even more intense than predicted, but... But it was getting blurred to Nick. It was becoming increasingly far from him, on the background of his own thoughts, as if he was in different planet from the one with the Avengers and the Maximoff problem. Every time he tried to focus on what was happening- fuck, he was there, in the Avengers Tower, to bring the fucking Avengers on his side!- every time he tried to be really there, his mind slipped away. Undefined memories clashed and smashed against his brain's walls. He felt like a noisy fog was going down inside of him, putting all the thing he truly knew were important in a place further and further, away from his own existence as he tried to collect all the pieces of what was happening inside him.  
Somehow, he found himself sitting at the room's table and he started massaging his temples, while the argument was continuing to pour.   
Nick couldn't catch a single word. At least, not of that present world.  
_«Stay, look at me. Stay»._  
_«I can't do this, Nick»_  
_«No, you don’t leave. Stay, stay...»_  
Only Maria should have realized his conditions, since he suddenly found her next to him. «You must let things go» she murmured again, eyes with something seeming endless sadness- something he haven't seen in her in ages.  
«What the fuck you're talking 'bout, Hill?» he spat.  
He didn't realize he had done it loudly until an abrupt silence lowered on the room. Nick hardly managed to shift his focus on the present, the hole under the blind fold pulsating like it was going to bleed all over him. «And so? Are we here to discuss Maximoff's emergency or to look at my face?»  
Parker snickered nervously. «It's just... well, sir, it's just seemed- to me at least that, well...»  
«Spit it out, Parker!»  
«You said "Hill"» Barnes said.  
The pain was becoming even stronger, now as something was making every possible effort to go out his brain through the crater in place of his lost eye. Nick tried to push it away with rage. «What then?»  
For maybe the first time since they had been created, the Avengers seemed to share the same opinion: to be perfectly silent. That's it: that day was being confirmed as the day of his life in which everyone’s purpose was to make him mad. Nick turned to search Maria, to share at least with her the fact the Avengers hadn’t realize “Hill” wasn’t a bad-world problem old Captain America’s style and that even so he could say it any fucking time he wanted. Maybe Hill and him should leave and go to speak with Strange.  
But Banner stood up from his personal seat and moved close to him before he could move a muscle. When Banner spoke, his voice turned out gentle, but for some reasons slightly quivering. «Nick».  
Ok, what was that confidence? And that strange expression?  
«Nick, Maria Hill, she is… she… can’t be here».  
That time was Nick’s round to be silent. He turned to Hill, fingering her to the others. «The fuck are you all talking about? She’s right there».  
The Avengers looked at him with a feeling that he hadn’t seen in ages: they looked at him with pity.  
«No» said Sam Wilson, getting also up. «No, sir, she isn’t».  
«Why shouldn’t her be?»  
«Because she died» said Barnes, without changing a bit his usual gloomy face, «Hill died. Almost a year ago».

  
_«Stay, look at me. Stay»._  
_«I can't do this, Nick»._  
_«No, you don’t leave. Stay, stay. Hill, don’t you leave!»  
_  
_Bombs rained over the city. A young Nick ran away, fast as he could._  
_There were corpses everywhere, even of children, even of babies. He stepped on them running._  
  
_Death, blood, corpse._  
_Mutilations, organs, poison, guns, death, blood._  
_Death, blood, corpse._  
  
_«I’m sorry, boss. The god rabbited…»_  
_«Just stay awake. Eyes on me»._  
_«No… I’m clocked out here»._  
_«Not an option»._  
_«It’s okay, boss…This was never going to work… if they didn’t have something…to…»_  
_Phil Coulson looked away from him, on the ground, smiling briefly and softly, as the blood flowed on his cheek. His breathe dropped until it ceased. Something inside Nick broke and he knew Coulson was there no more._  
  
_«Agent Romanoff… she sacrificed herself in the Soul Stone mission»._  
  
_The tree had exploded with the machine gun, but he had barely noticed._  
_He tried to do something. To do anything, with all his strength._  
_He lifted her head under his arm and he tried with the other to stop the river in flood blood that was coming out of her ribs. In not time, his hands were heated and his clothes were heavier by the red liquid._  
_«Stay, look at me. Stay» he told her, gritting his teeth._  
_Maria Hill smiled._  
_Unexpectedly and suddenly as a thunder. Despite her stomach had become an hole from those twenty bullets, despite her own body was rejecting blood and red blackish things, things like organs that you shouldn't ever seen outside a still alive body, despite the hair been mudded with ash, blood, other bodies’ pieces and lots of death, she unexpectedly smiled. An all-lips smile, because lifting them above the teeth would have required by now too much work- a sad and exhausted smile, a smile that was her no more one of her usual smirks and that was running out. «I can't do this, Nick» she murmured, starting to close her eyes. Two unavoidable eyelids were falling down._  
_«No, you don’t leave. Stay, stay. Hill, don’t you leave! Stay here with me! Stay here!»_  
_He tried to shake her, but he stopped when Maria Hill moved the head in a little, soft and calm way- a denial that a single moment after had stopped._  
_For maybe the first time since Nick had knew her, she didn’t followed his orders._  
_And she left, dying._

  
******  
**

«So… it wasn’t really something caused by Maximoff. You’re sure about it».  
«I am, Mr. Mackenzie. It’s a result of traumatic events that have never been healed, nor overcome or accepted».  
«I got it. What are your suggestions about what to do, Madame Web?»  
Nick had heard enough. He opened his eye, but the room’s dazzling light forced him to close it again, reopening it many times before he was able to see and really distinguish Mackenzie and the S.H.I.E.L.D.’s psychican mutant. Banner also entered in his field of vision- he was quite a view, all so big and tidy in that medical room. Outside the room, Smerdyakov was leaning to the semi-opened door, reading a fashion magazine. But the folks near to Nick all looked concerned, like he was the real problem, and not the girl who had fucking blown up an Oregon town and was willing to snap again in the middle of New York.  
«How do you feel, director?» asked Banner, always with his irritating gentle voice.  
«Doctor Banner...»  
«Yes?»  
«Why aren’t you with the Avengers? If each of you has so much time to spend it standing on my bed, then I’d suppose you all have completely solved Maximoff problem».  
«Well…» started Banner, but Nick stopped him.   
«Not another word, doctor. You’re the Avengers’ old member, for God’s sake, your place is with them». He got up from the bed and looked to Mackenzie and Madame Web. «And same goes for you two. I’m pretty sure you’re plenty of better occupations to attend to».  
The mutant flew, but Mackenzie stopped at the door while exiting that infirmary’s room. «But we’ll talk soon, Fury» he assured, before leaving.  
Nick paid no attention to him, as to whatever excuses Banner was mumbling. He had a dry mouth, the palate blocked by sticky saliva and the head that still terribly pulsed- he felt old, in some ways. «How long I have slept» he demanded from Banner.  
«Maybe four or five hours… the other Avengers are at the Sanctum, by the way, and Doctor Strange is sure Maximoff would be under control for at least other six hours».  
«Nice of her». Nick finished to adjust his guns in the usual places under his clothes, grateful that no one had dare to touch his things. «I’ll see you there at Strange’s place then, doctor Banner. I’ll arrive tonight. Keep Maximoff from screwing things up».  
He ignored Banner’s answer and also Maria’s sigh, as she got up of the probably empty chair next to the bed. Nick went out the room, signalling to Smerdyakov to follow him.  
«Take me to see her» he told him.  
Smerdyakov was a man of few words and lot of actions: therefore he understood and said nothing.

The tomb rose in a pacific graveyard, in the countryside just outisde Chicago.  
Even if the place didn’t feel a bit as something Maria would have feel as her home or as a part of her, Nick sensed a little relieved that it wasn’t near Romanoff’s or Coulson’s tombs- and neither to his own fake one. He knew seeing that would have been too much to cope with.  
Smerdyakov (and, unfortunately for him, others, by phone) had told him the funeral had been calm and soft; with lots of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s faces and lots of superheroes too, according to someone, with the presence of all the people had really known and appreciated Maria. That would have meant he had attended the funeral alone, with lots of ghosts and maybe ol’ Steve Rogers.  
As they were walking to the tomb, Smerdyakov hinted at something of the speeches made on the occasion, about the way Pepper Stark and her daughter had put or plant flowers and bullshit like that.  
His words slipped on him as rain on a windshield and so Nick didn’t realize when Smerdyakov finished to talk- considering he had ever done that. His voice describing the funeral had been particularly similar to Coulson’s, to Nick’s ears.  
Then, at last, they arrived.  
The headstone was at least adequate, in Nick’s opinion: a black, low marble’s square, lacking excessive decorations, with still some fresh flowers.  
Nick curled up with some difficulty- old age he hadn’t really sensed before seemed to overhelm him like a wave that day. He remained still for a while, watching the writing and the photo as they stay unchanged, there, unaltered on the rock. As they had been there for… almost a year.  
Only when he felt again the wind on his face and the world’s noises around him, he moved, stretching out the finger tips to simply touch the tomb’s side.  
«You must let things go» she repeated again.  
Nick closed his eye, trying to ignore the single tear cutting slowly his cheek.  
One thing he regretted more was not have called her by her name, when she had gone away.  
«Hi, Maria» he said.

**Author's Note:**

> Hi!  
> I'm helissa (with a minor starting letter) and this is my first Fanfiction ever in this site (even though I have published it also in Fanfiction.net and in another platform with my motherlanguage). I'm very excited about this story: not only because it’s the first that allowes me to reach a bigger public, but also because it’s the first with a sort of my new style- and it’s in English. I hope you’ll forgive eventual errors or mistakes, as it’s not my first language.  
> By the way, I’m a huge fan of Fury and wanted to write decently about him for a long time. Let’s talk about what I write.  
> The title of the story is taken from the song “I’m so sorry”- I think it’s kinda near Nick’s personality, at least in its own rhythm. I have specifically left some ambiguities in the relationship between Nick and Maria (you can see them as a sort of couple or a simple mentor/pupil relationship) and also in the ending of the story. You can’t tell if Nick is saying a simple goodbye to Maria, a forever farewell or if he’s accepting the fact he can’t get rid of her off his mind. I have put some references to “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.S” serie (even though I have decided to let Coulson have died in the first Avengers movie) and also to the “House of M”’s comics, as you can see.  
> I think I stop here. Let me know what you think about it! (If you're shy, you can always ask me something anonymously to @thecreativepoppy on Tumblr)  
> Kisses,  
> \- helissa


End file.
